Bioscience Resource Project News and Views

Published today (February 3rd 2014) in Independent Science News: “The Health Care Doctors Forgot: Why Ordinary Food Will be the New Medicine” by T Colin Campbell.

Can diet cure disease, and not just prevent it? Scientific evidence is accumulating that diets which emphasize consumption of plants and which avoid meat and dairy products can rapidly reverse common and life-threatening chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. For these and other common diseases research is showing that a diet-based cure is much more effective than current medical treatments which are largely ineffectual, expensive, and plagued by side effects. These important facts about the power of nutrition are not widely known, however. That is because they simultaneously challenge the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical profession. The latter read more…

Published today in Independent Science News: “Fakethrough! GMOs and the Capitulation of Science Journalism“, by Jonathan Latham, PhD, Executive Director of The Bioscience Resource Project.

“The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It’s not our job to cozy up to power. We’re supposed to be the check and balance on government.” — Amy Goodman

Goodman, like many others, believes the role of a democratic press is that of public interest watchdog.

For the the science media it appears to be the role not taken. This failure is perhaps most evident in its coverage of the Ag-Biotech industry, where the gap between what the data supports and the press reports appears ever-widening. Especially telling are the articles describing ‘humanitarian’ GMO breakthroughs in which biotech crops are proposed, read more…

Published today in Independent Science News: “Can the Scientific Reputation of Pamela Ronald, Public Face of GMOs, Be Salvaged?”
Written by Jonathan Latham, PhD
Read the full article at Url: http://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/can-the-scientific-reputation-of-pamela-ronald-public-face-of-gmos-be-salvaged/

Synopsis:  When a quotable university expert is needed to speak on behalf of crop biotechnology, Pamela Ronald is the U.S. media’s professor of choice. Her credibility as a scientific pro-GMO expert derives from her long term research into diseases of rice at the University of California, Davis. But Pamela Ronald’s research career is coming to resemble a liability. In the past year Ronald has publicly retracted two original scientific papers based on research carried out in the laboratory she heads. These publications (including one from Science) formed the core of her plant disease research program. At the same time, German researchers have publicly raised substantive questions about a third Ronald publication.

Presumably because her scientific reputation is highly valuable to the biotech industry, a coordinated media campaign is underway to rescue it. Pamela Ronald and the campaign blame now-departed lab members from Thailand and Korea for the lab’s errors and Ronald is praised for initiating the retractions. The truth, however, is not so simple, and raises still further questions about the scientific validity of Pamela Ronald’s research.

Independent Science News today published “The Founding Fables of Industrialised Agriculture” by Colin Tudge, writer and co-founder of The Campaign for Real Farming and the College for Enlightened Agriculture.

Article synopsis: Industrial agriculture “is a far bigger threat to humanity than North Korea or “terrorism”, or the collapse of banks or dwindling oil”. Responsible for, among other things, climate change, water pollution, ill health, and the destruction of soils, small-scale farming, and rural communities, it has been sold to the public on a series of mythological propositions. Principal among these myths are monoculture agriculture’s “high yields and efficiency”, smallholder farming’s “inadequacy”, and the “food productivity crisis”. Journalists, politicians, and especially academics, propagate these myths — apparently read more…

African economies feature huge discrepancies and alarming gaps in statistical knowledge. These exist with respect to productivity, income distribution, and population. Some of these statistical problems represent simple inadequacy of data collection, but many are the result of politics. Data are subject to manipulation by political leaders to ensure favorable read more…

Jonathan Latham, PhD and Allison Wilson, PhD, The Bioscience Resource Project’s Executive Director and Science Director have joined over 90 other scientists, academics, and physicians in signing the Statement described in today’s European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) Press Release:

There is no scientific consensus on the safety of genetically modified foods and crops, according to a statement released today by an international group of more than 90 scientists, academics and physicians.[1]

The statement comes in response to recent claims from the GM industry and some scientists, journalists, and commentators that there is a “scientific consensus” that GM foods and crops were generally found safe for human and animal health and the environment. The statement calls these claims “misleading”, adding, “This claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist.”

“Such claims may place human and environmental health at undue risk and create an atmosphere of complacency,” states Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, chairperson of the read more…